HS2 - Will the madness end?

[flumperino]

I don't know much about HS2, but everything I have read about it makes it sound like a complete waste of money.

If people are dying and children are freezing because people can't afford to heat their homes, and people are being affected by longer NHS waiting times etc, surely there is a better way to spend the 40 BILLION pounds, than getting us from place to place a little faster?

Plus, I don't understand how the benefits are calculated? I would have thought that people are going to spend a finite amount of money for each individual journey - how are they going to spend more by arriving at their destination half an hour earlier? Even if they do spend more while at their destination, the money still has to come from somewhere, so people might end us spending less in their original location, so it cancels out the benefit?

I don't know, I just hope that the government sees sense and cancels this. Or, that the benefits are clearly explained and justified, with an appropriate sense-check supplied to validate the figures.

[Nathz29]

The rail network does need an upgrade to lines badly, that's the only benefit to this as far as I can see it will be a major improvement and a new backbone for network. Problem is it'll probably be cheaper to fly than get on any of the trains on this line, it'll benefit a select few for sure, man in the street probably not.

However for £40 Billion I'd expect to see a Maglev or something more advanced than regular rolling stock, at least try and innovate a little

I'd rather see the money spent elsewhere to be honest, but I'm wary of allowing this or any government to spend it on the NHS as it'll most likely be used to make it easier to privatise rather than spent on care and patients, same for education Gove is a blithering idiot and the academy schools this government has set up are nothing but shells for what they hope will be commercially funded virtually private schools if you ask me.

[Goldberg]

£40 Billion and yet people will still have to stand for most of the journeys... I fail how they can justify it. If it was a network that covered the whole of the UK then maybe, but it isn't going to..

[Nathz29]

Be far better off giving everyone in the uk a million to spend, that'd benefit the economy far more than hs2 ever will, and keep the remaining 39.9billion.

[Goldberg]

£40 Billion for a bunch of politicians top play 'Train Set', my local hospital where my wife is due to give birth has just had a complete slating in a recent report. Blood stained curtains, dirty bins, rooms classed as ready but instruments from the last birth still out... Seriously we are scared to fuck about the whole thing!!

How much of the £40 Billion would it take to fix that.. Not a great deal and the same story in most if not all hospitals... We do not need the HS2.. It is a result of backhanders and gifts to the politicians that is keeping the thing alive.

[DavidF]

Scrap HS2 tell EDF and their chinese backers to bugger off and build 2 or 3 nuclear plants with the cash instead. They estimate each new plant will cost £16billion. So build them with tax payer cash and either rent them to the providers OR have a nationalised company controlling these in direct competition with the current lot.....The way we are doing it just now is madness in the extreme with the french and chinese going to be basically having a control over our energy generation.

[tombott]

In all likelihood it will cost more than £40 Billion. Some think-tanks think its more like £80 Billion. So going by the Governments usual fuck ups and over spends it's probably more like £120 Billion

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23744619

[beansontoast]

This is planned to come right past where I live but the nearest station is Birmingham. The next station on the line is Manchester. How can that benefit this area? In no way whatsoever. If anyone would like an enormous metal thing that makes a ma-fucking-hoosive noise going past their town which serves no purpose then you're welcome to it. Bloody ranting again.

If the trains are overcrowded and can't be extended then it's time for double decker trains. I don't mean an intercity 125 the size of a routemaster, I've been to places like Holland and Ukraine which have double decker trains & it can't be too difficult - ok there would be an upgrade required to the electrified lines and bridges - all the obvious things.

What this is is a cock measuring exercise with other countries, only they flopped theirs out decades ago. It pisses me off when they show the same cgi footage of the HS2 on a bright sunny day coming out of a tunnel or crossing a canal. How about animating one with a shopping trolley on the line or a scrote dropping things off a bridge onto it. The risk factor is enormous when the speed is increased. Also if anyone didn't know the tracks need 70m lateral clearance so that's a right gouge in the countryside, pass through a hill and the clearance is enormous.

I've moaned about this before (probably a year ago) and get a bit side tracked every time. Basically fuck HS2, rethink without the cock flopping bullshit and then start your journeys 20 minutes earlier and do some work on the train instead if you're that keen.

[Goldberg]

Will they use the money that should be spent on all of the potholes on the A406 in London? It is not just that road, more and more roads are deteriorating and doing so very quickly nowadays!

I cannot remember a time over the last 10 years when I have done the A406 - M11 - A14 - A1 - A19 route and no works have been carried out. It is basically a straight line from London to the North East and yet it has taken them years to do whatever they have done so far, then undone and then done again... Get that right before you jump into another game..

[tombott]

This is planned to come right past where I live but the nearest station is Birmingham. The next station on the line is Manchester. How can that benefit this area? In no way whatsoever. If anyone would like an enormous metal thing that makes a ma-fucking-hoosive noise going past their town which serves no purpose then you're welcome to it. Bloody ranting again.

If the trains are overcrowded and can't be extended then it's time for double decker trains. I don't mean an intercity 125 the size of a routemaster, I've been to places like Holland and Ukraine which have double decker trains & it can't be too difficult - ok there would be an upgrade required to the electrified lines and bridges - all the obvious things.

What this is is a cock measuring exercise with other countries, only they flopped theirs out decades ago. It pisses me off when they show the same cgi footage of the HS2 on a bright sunny day coming out of a tunnel or crossing a canal. How about animating one with a shopping trolley on the line or a scrote dropping things off a bridge onto it. The risk factor is enormous when the speed is increased. Also if anyone didn't know the tracks need 70m lateral clearance so that's a right gouge in the countryside, pass through a hill and the clearance is enormous.

I've moaned about this before (probably a year ago) and get a bit side tracked every time. Basically fuck HS2, rethink without the cock flopping bullshit and then start your journeys 20 minutes earlier and do some work on the train instead if you're that keen.

Yeah it really is nonsense.
I work in Birmingham, and get the train in everyday. It's a 60mile journey at takes about 1 hour 20 mins.
When I lived in London I regularly got the train to Birmingham from London, and again it's about a 1 hour 20 mins. I cannot see the benefit of another line from London to Birmingham just to shave 10mins off the journey.
Money would be much better spent on regeneration and investment of the Midlands and the North, or putting back some of the rail infrastructure the ripped out in the 60's. Most of the lines around me are single track, so if one train is delayed it fucks up all trains in both directions. Total farce. Still I bet some of the MP's mates will do well out of all of this.

[QfanatiQ]

I am against and the build will not effect me. It is not the NIMBY's that have won me over, its the full counter argument. Showing money for return, gain, long term gain, issue only addressed for short term. Further investment needed too soon after completion.

Personally, the issue that governement run projects do NOT run on time or budget. This has PI but I fear it will go over budget and this will need to be recouped on tickets.

Get that money invested back into existing infrastructure, stock, stations (platform length). I think we can handle the few minutes saving. If a business tool, get decent wifi capabilities on board. Or just invest that money into internet infrastructure and encourage people to take meetings remotely! I do it all the time uk and world based. Very rarely, very rarely indeed does anyone travel to me and I never travel to them.

Q

[SiE]

They should get the freight going again and get the wagons off the motorways at peak times.

[flumperino]

If Milliband can convince us that his pledge to not increase energy prices is workable, and if he agrees to scrap HS2, he'll have the next election in the bag!

[hoponbaby]

The extra capacity to allow more freight is part of the argument but wouldn't it be simpler to expand current capacity by longer trains, double track etc.

Personally I agree that the money could be better spent elsewhere, even if that was split so 2 nuclear power stations and rail upgrades or a new airport. The NHS already gets £109 billion per year, an extra £40 billion over 10-15 years is (relatively) neither here nor there and would no doubt get wasted. Hospitals seem to have the money to spend on vanity matters such as art but not on cleaning. How much of the budget gets spent each year though on PFI repayments and maintenance contracts.

[Goldberg]

the whole 'shave 10 minutes off a journey' is bollocks too.. The figures are all based on current train times. If I wanted to get the train from Eaglescliffe (Middlesbrough) to London Kings Cross they come at:

7:30, 9:30, 13:12, 15:10, 18:21

Lets say I wanted to get the 7:30 and miss it, I have to then add 2 hours onto my journey time as I am waiting for the next train. If I miss that then I am fucked.
The simple (ideal world) solution is to put more frequent services on! Not build a whole new line with new trains ffs... The whole shaving 10 minutes off becomes irrelevant.

Spend the money on that!

[CzarJunkie]

Be far better off giving everyone in the uk a million to spend, that'd benefit the economy far more than hs2 ever will, and keep the remaining 39.9billion.

If you gave everyone in the UK £1m to spend that would cost the Government £65 Trillion. Did you mean a million between everyone? If so, that would be 1.5p each.

Either way, it's a shit argument.

[Nathz29]

Yep bad maths my bad, it'd be better spent by giving it to Joe public than letting any incumbent government commit it to this project is the point.

So no not a bad argument...

[MHP]

The biggest hole in the the HS2 argument is the spread of wealth/workforce. The powers that be would let you believe that this infrastructure upgrade will benefit the people of north of England and decentralise the wealth in London. This was the plan in Japan many years ago when they rolled out their High Speed Bullet trains. It had the opposite effect, people and wealth gravitated towards Tokyo more than ever before. HS2 will allow people to live cheaply (for a while) in the north and work in London, not the other way round. The reinstatement of the freight railway network that was decimated by both red and blue political parties, would be a step in the right direction. However this would require long term thinking, a trait that's eluded successive UK governments since the 1960's.